


Four Days in October

by mcicioni



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: M/M, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-26
Updated: 2013-10-26
Packaged: 2017-12-30 12:32:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1018654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcicioni/pseuds/mcicioni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A long-distance runner is murdered. Lewis and Hathaway discover the murderer as well as a few other things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Days in October

**Wednesday, 22 October 2008**

He was the last one off the athletics ground again, Alex thought as he stuffed his sweat-drenched T-shirt and shorts into his gym bag. Tonight he’d run twelve miles and by the time he’d got back to the changing rooms all his friends had left. But it was worth all the sweat and pain to be the best long-distance runner in the school, nearly always first in the under-18 competitions. He'd come second in the 6-kilometre event an international school competition in Vienna, and there was another one coming up in a couple of weeks, in Italy. Maybe these were the first steps towards bigger and better things. Maybe even London 2012, if he trained regularly and put his mind to it. He thought about it constantly, when he wasn’t doing his homework.

He walked out of the gate and started up the path that led to Iffley Road, slippery with damp fallen leaves. The October wind was chilly and it was starting to drizzle, and his mother’s car was nowhere in sight. Stuck in traffic as usual, and too scared to run amber lights or to go even two miles over the limit. Every time he pointed this out she got cranky and called him a backseat driver, but in two months he was going to turn seventeen, and he was going to apply for his learner’s permit, and then he was going to show her what driving was.

* * * * 

Erika glared at her computer, switched it off and stretched. Another patent translated, another sixty pounds. What would tomorrow bring? Maybe another divorce decree. Or maybe another model of sunbed, or another degree certificate, or another laser blasting process. She grimaced, then looked at her watch, muttered _Scheisse_ , stood up and grabbed her car keys.

* * * * *

The meeting was over and all the women started crowding towards the door and heading for the pub. Gita manoeuvred so that she found herself next to the Scandinavian-looking linguistics student as they were filing out. She just couldn't resist Northern European women, and a foreign student would be wonderful for a lighthearted fling. No more living-in arrangements, not for a long time, thank you very much. Tonight she had to rush off, but she could manage a friendly overture. She turned towards the other girl with a little smile and a long appraising look, aware of the dazzling effect of her combination of perfect tawny skin, close-cropped black hair and confident swagger. 

* * * * *

Sitting on the bus, Neil closed his eyes tightly, muttering _fuckfuckfuckfuckingfuck_ in the hope that the mantra would defeat his urge to start sobbing his heart out. Fucking coach, heaping praise on fucking Alex Feld and not even giving _him_ the time of fucking day. Fucking PE teachers, setting the requirements for the team that was to compete against the Italian school at exactly one fucking second under his personal best. Alex had made the team, of course. Neil saw Alex's smug grin again, and thought that given half a chance he could easily bash the fucking lot of them, Alex first and foremost, and draw blood. 

* * * * *

"Obviously your starting point when looking at _A Man for All Seasons_ is the number of ways in which it is a play of its particular time. You may want to think about Brechtian influences. Not Marxism, obviously – rather the notion of alienation, and various estrangement effects." Philip smiled benignly at the group of first-years. Some of them smiled back, mostly at his Cockney accent. "And please try to keep extra-textual references to a minimum. No digressions on Nelson Mandela or why Hillary Clinton voted for the intervention in Iraq. We are looking at the way this text constructs _morality_ , _pragmatism_ and _integrity_." A pause. "Or whatever else you can argue that it constructs. See you next week."

* * * * *

“Alex.”

Alex heard his name and turned around, and saw a flash as someone stepped out from behind the bus shelter and lunged at him. He twisted sideways but wasn’t fast enough, and there was a deep, searing heat in his left side. He stretched out his free hand to fend off another blow; heat slashed across his palm, then sharp pain entered his body and cut his breath off, once, twice, and again. He staggered, clutching his side, and when he lifted his hand it was drenched in blood, and the blood was dark, almost black. He opened his mouth but no sound came out; he felt himself fall backwards onto the damp grass and heard steps running away toward the back lane. Pain was all around him, he was soaked and cold and thirsty, and just small bubbles came out of his lips as he tried to whisper No, not yet, he had so many races to run, he couldn’t miss the competition in Italy, and he had to learn to drive and pass his GCSEs, not yet, please, please. He called on all his muscles and managed to turn and start crawling towards the road, one inch, then another, but blood was seeping out of his mouth and body and his muscles weren't obeying him any more. He desperately thought of his mother: all he wanted was for her to wink at him and call him a back-seat driver, all he wanted was for her to hold him and make him feel warm and safe, _Mama_ I love you, he was so cold and so tired, he couldn’t --

He lay motionless on the blood-soaked grass, one arm still tangled in the handles of his gym bag.

* * * * 

Lewis closed his lips around a yawn that was trying to escape. He had slept little and fitfully, but there was no point in giving Innocent any reason to start the day by humiliating him.

"This isn't a request, Inspector." The temperature in the room cooled by a couple of degrees. "All my staff from the rank of sergeant up are going to be issued with BlackBerries today and will start using them the day after tomorrow. The staff who are already using BlackBerries," a pointed look at Hathaway, who was standing beside Lewis, looking straight ahead, "will make the time to instruct their partners. Or superior officers, as the case may be."

Two patches of colour rose to Lewis' cheeks. "I still don't see why we've got to carry two contraptions, that and a mobile, ma'am."

"You won't have to carry two, Lewis." Innocent's slow, patient tone reminded Lewis of Morse on his worst, hung-over days. "Your BlackBerry will be your phone, your organiser, your Internet connection and your email access. As well as your GPS."

"My GPS," muttered Lewis around another yawn.

"Global Positioning System, sir." Hathaway's voice was earnest, helpful. "Your satellite street directory." Lewis glared at him, and was about to say something when the sergeant's BlackBerry rang.

"Hathaway." A pause. "Where?" A few quick taps on the tiny keyboard. "We're on our way." He pressed a key and slid the device back into his pocket. “It's a squad car, from the Iffley Road Sports Complex. A sixteen-year-old boy. Stabbed to death.” His eyes were dark, full of the pain that accompanied them every day in their work. “His mother was the one who found him.”

* * * * 

Lewis pulled up the collar of his scene suit in the forlorn hope that it would prevent a little of the drizzle from trickling down his neck. The headlights of the squad cars made pools of light in the wet darkness that cloaked the cordoned-off area, the sports complex and the road. The victim lay under a too-short plastic sheet, with a dirty running shoe sticking out at one end and a small tuft of reddish-brown hair at the other. Sixteen years old. Lewis's stomach contracted as his mind flashed to Mark, only a little older than this lad, backpacking or fruit picking or doing who knew what somewhere in Australia. Then for a long moment he wished he could believe in some place where murdered teenage athletes could spend eternity happily competing against one another. 

“He’s been dead a couple of hours. Stabbed four times, stomach and lungs.” Just the faintest trace of emotion in Laura Hobson’s competent voice. "Both lungs appear to have been punctured." A moment's pause, then she spoke more softly. "He didn't suffer long."

Lewis started to sift the available evidence. "Palm and fingers of his right hand slashed. An obvious sign that he tried to protect himself. No signs of a fight, which means he was killed in cold blood." He turned back to the forensic scientist. "What can you tell me about the murderer?"

She frowned. "An informed guess? I'd say you're looking for a left-hander, probably shorter than the boy. The weapon was a small knife, perhaps a Swiss army knife or a pocket flickknife. I'll let you have precise details after the autopsy." 

"Anything else?"

"A few facts. He lived with his mother. She's an Austrian who works as a translator. Erika came to pick him up, found him, and managed to call the police before collapsing. She's at the John Radcliffe Hospital."

"How do you . . . Did you say Erika?" Lewis frowned. "You know her?"

"We have mutual friends," Laura Hobson answered, politely but with a hint of wariness. Lewis nodded and lifted a hand in farewell as he and Hathaway moved away. Up to them to find motives and people.

“No witnesses,” Hathaway said matter-of-factly, opening his notebook. “He was Alex Feld, a high school student. As Dr Hobson said, he lived with his mother. Erika Seidler."

“And his father?”

“He’s over there. Philip Feld, a lecturer in English Literature. He and Ms Seidler don't live together. His mobile number was in the boy's directory under 'Dad'.” Hathaway nodded in the direction of a tall, dark-haired man standing motionless a short distance away, head bowed and arms dangling by his sides. As the two detectives approached, he half-turned toward them in silent resignation. 

"Dr Feld." Hathaway's voice was low, warm. The boy's father swallowed a couple of times and nodded slightly, _Ask away_.

"Dr Feld, are you Austrian as well?"

He shook his head sharply. "No. I'm a Londoner." Then he paused and shrugged self-consciously. "My grandparents left Germany in 1934. Just in time."

Lewis nodded his understanding and took over. "Did you see Alex regularly?"

"Yes. He spends ... spent two nights a week with me and my family." He frowned for a moment. "My second family: my wife and two young daughters. Alex got on well with them. Loved his sisters. Read them stories. Taught them to swim." He paused, turned away, his shoulders shaking. Lewis and Hathaway looked at each other and waited for him to regain composure. 

"I'm sorry, Dr Feld, but I must ask you a couple of difficult questions. Can you think of anyone your son did not get on well with? Someone who for any reason may have wanted to harm him?" 

Puzzled resentment mixed with grief in the man's eyes. "No, there wasn't anyone. He did well at school, had quite a few friends."

"A girlfriend?"

"No. Not that I know of. Too busy studying and training. He was a runner. Long-distance. He trained four nights a week."

"And the school is where?" Hathaway tapped the name and address of the school into his BlackBerry while Lewis tried to backtrack. "Now, what can you tell us about your first wife?" He stopped as a faint shadow crossed the man's face.

"Erika and I were together for three years, but we never married. She'd tried marriage once before." He shrugged. "We're on fairly friendly terms. Sometimes we all have ... had dinner together, my wife, myself, Erika, and all the children."

"Is Ms Seidler . . ." Hathaway hesitated for a fraction of a second. ". . . seeing another man?"

A minimal pause. Feld's eyes shifted slightly as he shook his head. "No. I'm sure she isn't."

A white-suited man approached them, holding out a bagged cigarette packet. "Sir. I found it behind the bus shelter. It's not too wet, it hasn't been lying around for a long time." 

Lewis extended the bag to Feld. "Is this yours?"

He shook his head again. "Erika and I are ex-smokers, and so are my wife and most of our friends …" He took hold of the bag and looked at the packet closely. "Petra . . . It's not a brand I have ever seen."

"It's a Czech brand," Hathaway announced, a little distance away from them. "Popular in Germany, Austria and the former Yugoslavia." Thin wisps of smoke were coming out of his nostrils, and a cigarette was burning between his fingers. Lewis gave him a stern look but held his peace. 

"We need to ask you one last question, Dr Feld. Where were you two, three hours ago?"

Feld scowled at him, then nodded slightly, _Yes, you have to ask_. "Having dinner with some friends, at their house." Hathaway typed in names and addresses. "Look, if you don't mind, and if you're finished with it, I'd like to drive Erika's car back to her house. She gave me the keys before they took her to hospital. I don't live far from here, and it would help her a little …" Lewis looked at Hobson, who nodded assent. Feld got into the car, an elderly dark-green Ford Laser, the bodywork reasonably clean if a little scratched. Lewis glanced inside: newspapers and files all over the rear seat, a long black scarf on the floor.

As the Laser started moving off, Lewis' eyes fell on the rear window. On the right-hand side, not too obtrusive but clearly visible, was a small oval sticker divided into two parts. On the left there was a capital E surrounded by stars, the symbol of the European Union. On the right was a broad rainbow band, the international Gay Pride symbol. His eyes met Hathaway's, and they exchanged a wordless nod as they headed for their car.

“I’ll wait at the hospital until she can talk,” Hathaway offered, starting the engine.

Lewis shook his head. "It may be a long wait. I haven't got anything else to do tonight. You go off and practice your madrigals or something."

Hathaway turned towards him and smiled angelically. "Well, sir. If we wait together . . ." the angelic smile turned into poker-faced challenge, "we might start getting acquainted with your new BlackBerry."

* * * * 

On the door of the hospital room hung a large Do Not Disturb sign. The nurse had gone to get a doctor's permission for them to see Erika Seidler. Lewis yawned unapologetically and rubbed his face with both hands. 

"Ever heard of sleep debt, sir?" Hathaway was looking at him steadily. "You need at least six hours a night. If you go for days on three or four hours, you start running up a debt. And sooner or later the creditor, that is to say your body, catches up with you. And you get sick. Or collapse."

"I appreciate the good wishes, Hathaway."

"However. This might be worth staying awake for." Hathaway held his BlackBerry out and pointed at a little white ball in the first row of the tiny keyboard. "The ball mouse." Lewis, not unfamiliar with laptops, nodded in silence. Hathaway touched another button and the screen filled with icons. "And the applications: messages, e-mail, Internet browser, camera, maps, _et cetera_."

Lewis grunted acknowledgement, wondering what the best response should be: resigned compliance, or honesty about what he'd like to do with diabolical inventions that make you more and more available to everyone, twenty-four hours out of twenty-four. For a moment he thought about Morse, who mistrusted computers and used a fountain pen.

"Your approach is essentially that of a humanist, sir." Hathaway did not sound as if he was taking the piss. Lewis eyed him in silence. "You expect to understand how everything works. With electronic gadgets, you don't need to: all you need to do is practice." 

Lewis' patience snapped. "I may be technologically challenged, Sergeant," he said, stressing the last word, "but I will not be patronised by someone young enough to be my son."

Hathaway snorted, gave Lewis a long look and fell silent. They sat without speaking until the nurse returned and waved them into the room with a curt "No more than five minutes."

Erika Seidler was propped up in bed, staring out of the window at the hospital car park, motionless except for the hand that frequently stretched out to pluck a fresh tissue from the box at her side. She was in her mid-forties, Lewis guessed from the sprinkling of grey in the short reddish-brown hair and the thickening of what must have been a slim, full-breasted figure. The eyes she lifted up at him were, like her son’s, green and veiled by long lashes: probably beautiful and lively under normal circumstances, they were now a hundred years old, dark and empty. Her tears kept flowing, and she let them, just blowing her nose softly every now and then.

“Ms Seidler, we’re so sorry.” Lewis stood by the bed, Hathaway a little behind him. “We won’t bother you for long.” A tiny flicker in her eyes. “We have spoken with Dr Feld, but we need to ask you a few questions before we start looking for your son’s murderer.” She bit her lower lip hard and nodded.

“Dr Feld said nobody disliked Alex,” Lewis went on softly. “Would you agree?"

She closed her eyes for a second, then looked up, the shadow of an ironic smile in them. "My son," more tears flowed quietly after the two words, "was … very confident. Possibly a little arrogant. But he was funny, outgoing. A few people may have resented him, but nearly everyone liked him." Even under these circumstances her English was excellent, the accent barely noticeable. "Two weeks ago he was interviewed by a journalist from an Austrian paper; he had come second in a race in an international School Olympics competition. He and I always spoke German together, he was almost a perfect bilingual …" A pause, a soft sigh. "But that's irrelevant for you, isn't it?"

"Nothing's irrelevant at this stage, ma'am." Lewis looked at her again and decided that the most tactful thing to do would be to ask the last two questions outright, and then leave her alone. “Ms Seidler, we’d like to ask you something about your car.” She looked up at him again. “There’s a Eurogay sticker on the rear window.” He paused again. “Was Alex gay?”

She shook her head almost imperceptibly. “No. The sticker’s mine.”

Lewis and Hathaway glanced at each other, Lewis with a half-raised eyebrow, Hathaway with a brief nod. Hathaway pulled the evidence bag containing the Czech cigarette packet out of his pocket and handed it to Erika: "Please look at this. It was found near your son's body. Does it mean anything to you?"

She looked at the packet and shook her head. "No. I haven't seen Petra cigarettes since I left Austria." She stopped, frowned, looked away. "I can't think . . . Really, no. I'm sorry." She fell back on her pillows. "I can't help you." 

"Goodbye, Inspector. Goodbye, Sergeant." The nurse entered without knocking, her tone and manner brooking no argument. Lewis and Hathaway moved towards the door. On the threshold, they stopped and turned to say goodbye. Erika was staring at her hands, slowly twisting them. She did not look up.

* * * * 

 

"We're getting nowhere." Lewis took a swallow of his beer, then looked at the remains of braised beef and mashed potatoes congealing on his plate. "Either the murderer's a psychopath hitting out at random . . ." He rubbed the back of his neck. ". . . or the murder was planned, which means that there must be some connection. But where?"

"I'm not sure, sir." Hathaway was finishing his salad and did not seem all that willing to engage. "Probably the cigarette packet. That's our only clue so far. I'll take it to the lab first thing tomorrow morning." He put his elbows on the table and steepled his long fingers in front of his face, effectively hiding half of it, a drawbridge going up. "What next, sir?"

Lewis blew out a breath. "Come on, man, there's two of us doing this." He held four fingers up, one after the other. "The other runners, the coach, the teachers at the school, maybe also Dr Feld's other family."

"We could try the school first." A beat. "Provided you're not too embarrassed at having to work with someone young enough to be your son."

"Ah, _that's_ what you were sulking about," Lewis laughed.

"Brooding, sir." Hathaway stood up, leaving a couple of notes on the table. "And I'm going out for a smoke."

Shaking his head, Lewis picked up the notes and went to pay the bill, then joined his sergeant outside. Hathaway took a last, deep drag on his cigarette, then gave Lewis a long look and very carefully extinguished the butt, picked it up and dropped it into the nearest bin. They started walking in step – easier now than it had been, now that Hathaway was taking shorter strides and Lewis had started visiting the gym.

"What did you think of Erika Seidler?" Lewis asked, a tentative peace offering.

"Heart-broken – who wouldn't be? Likeable. Honest. And yet . . . I have the feeling that there's something more that she has chosen not to tell us."

Lewis thought this over. Yes, the woman's wariness at the mention of the cigarettes wasn't just shock and grief. "What do you mean?"

Hathaway frowned. "Not sure. She told us about herself, but she may have been holding a few things back. Maybe it's just me – I may have her fellow countryman Haider in the back of my mind."

Lewis frowned. "Haider? The politician? The xenophobe who died last week? What's he got to do …?"

Hathaway gave him a sidelong look. "Didn't you watch the news this evening, sir? He was a traditional family man, Catholic, married. And earlier today his deputy spilled the beans on him. They had had a gay relationship for years."

Lewis shrugged, impatient and vaguely unsettled. He tried, unsuccessfully, to suppress a yawn, and wondered if the night would bring him some sleep or just more questions. So many dots – a dead boy, British Jews, Austrian lesbians, Czech cigarettes – and no way of connecting them. And why was Hathaway interested in right-wing European politicians? He yawned again, openly this time.

"Sleep debt, sir. No alcohol before bedtime - try herbal tea and some slow, shallow breathing."

"Yeah, yeah, all right." They were approaching his car, he noted with relief. "See you at the school tomorrow morning, all right?"

Hathaway nodded, an unreadable expression in his eyes. "Definitely, sir. Good night."

* * * * *

**Thursday, 23 October**

 

"The P.E. teacher said that you were Alex's main competitor on the athletics track. And his best friend everywhere else."

Neil Thomson ran a hand through his untidy, not too clean blond mop. He was pale and his eyes were swollen and red-rimmed, but he looked straight back at Lewis as he answered. Lewis shook his head to clear it. Two or three hours' sleep and many hours spent staring at the ceiling were not the best preparation for a full day's investigation. Especially when there had been dreams, disturbing early-morning dreams which he could only recall in fragments: Valerie, repeating _I won't be long, Robbie, just going to post this parcel_ ; Morse, lying alone in the cold of the mortuary; Hathaway, in the middle of the flames in Zoe Kenneth's bedroom. 

"Yeah. We studied together, I helped him with maths and he helped me with German."

"Did you train together as well? Both of you being runners, like."

"Yeah." A long pause. "He was better than me. Not a lot, but he was." Neil lowered his eyes and spent some time tearing a strip of cuticle from a thumb. When he spoke again, his voice was low, broken. "A couple of times I . . . I wished he would . . . go away or disappear or something." His shoulders started shaking. Lewis made a sympathetic noise, aware that it would have been inappropriate for him to put an arm around the lad's shoulders, but wishing he could all the same. He thought of Mark alone in Australia, and then of Alex's body under the plastic sheet.

"Do you think Alex was happy at home?"

Neil sniffed, swallowed hard and looked up again. "He got on well with his dad and his dad's family. Loved his half-sisters even though they were a bit wet . . . I mean girly."

"And his mum?"

"He loved her." Spoken with utter certainty. "They teased each other all the time, he thought she was great. She liked having us . . . his mates . . . over. Pity about . . ." a grimace, "her _friend_. Alex hated her."

"His mother's girlfriend?"

Neil coloured a little. "Yeah. Posh Indian girl. Gita something. She lived with them for a while. She and Alex used to fight a lot. He was glad when she moved out."

Lewis nodded. "I think that's about it, Neil, thank you."

Neil stood up. He looked at Lewis again, confused, lost. "I just . . . I just wish I could . . ."

Lewis stood up too, and laid a light hand on the lad's shoulder for a moment. "When you lose someone close to you, you keep wishing you had said something you didn't, or done something, or maybe not said or done this, that or the other." He sighed and went on softly, speaking to himself as well as Neil. "You can spend a lot of time regretting. It's natural. But don't spend all the time on it. Try to keep in mind . . . what Alex was like, what he cared about. Maybe what he would like you to remember about him." Neil nodded silently a couple of times, his eyes filling. Lewis gently ruffled the boy's hair and walked out.

Oblivious in the middle of whirling streams of noisy students, Hathaway was leaning against a wall, apparently deep in a paperback edition of the poems of Catullus. Lewis caught himself in a smile and quickly suppressed it.

"How did you do with the Head and the teachers?" he asked gruffly.

Hathaway slid the book into a pocket. "Good general picture of Alex. He was a swimmer and a cricketer as well as an outstanding runner. Intelligent, good sense of humour, cocky but polite. Good impressions of both parents as well. Speaking of whom, I've checked Dr Feld's alibi. All his friends have confirmed it."

"I wonder if it's too soon for us to see his mother again," Lewis said doubtfully.

Hathaway had already got his BlackBerry out and was speaking to the hospital reception. "She was discharged this morning. A friend drove her home."

* * * * 

 

The house was a semi in a small side street not far from the Woodstock Road, the front garden rather untidy but the paintwork fresh. Long green curtains were pulled across a wide French window to the right of the main door. Lewis rang the doorbell.

Erika Seidler opened the door slowly. In jeans and a dark jumper, she looked less vulnerable than she had in hospital, but loss and grief were in every movement, in every look.

"You shouldn't have been discharged," Lewis said bluntly. "Or at least there should be someone with you now. Have you got enough to eat, like?"

“Thank you. You’re very kind.” The corners of her mouth lifted in a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. Skirting a pile of tennis things in a corner and a pile of cricket things by the doorway, she led the two detectives into a bright, untidy kitchen, moved to the refrigerator and opened it. It was bulging with vegetables, half a pineapple, a whole uncooked chicken, plastic containers, bowls covered in plastic wrap.

"I did some shopping." The woman emerging from the bathroom was about Hathaway's age and had an upper-class accent and stunning looks, enhanced by her casually worn, perfectly fitting silk shirt and designer jeans. She held out her hand in an unaffectedly boyish gesture. "Gita Narayan."

"I understand you lived here until a short while ago." Lewis cursed his abruptness, but she gave him an unperturbed smile.

"That's right. And I'm on my way now." She embraced Erika warmly, kissed her on the cheek, and let herself out.

"Please tell us about Ms Narayan," Lewis said, quietly and firmly, as soon as her steps had faded away. "Especially in connection with your son. We've heard that they weren't the best of friends."

Erika frowned. Lewis waited a little, then spoke again. "Ms Seidler, we're trying to find the right dots to join. Your son was a good lad; it's not easy to think of anyone who'd want to hurt him."

She looked down, blew her nose, then started thinking aloud. "Gita was the only one of my girlfriends who actually moved in. I hoped that it would work out, the three of us, but . . . It wasn't that Alex was unhappy about my having a girlfriend. It was more a case of . . . each of them wanting to come first, each of them wanting attention. There were lots of squabbles, and . . ." she sighed deeply, "I started feeling that I had two children instead of one."

Lewis felt Hathaway's eyes on him, and cast a quick glance back. The younger man's expression was inscrutable; the drawbridge had been raised again. Lewis frowned at him and turned his attention back to Erika.

She sighed again. "A couple of weeks ago there was a nasty argument. Alex shouted at Gita _I wish you'd piss off for ever_. Gita replied _I wish I could wring your neck_ , or words to that effect, then packed up and left." She paused. "We were all angry and hurt, but we were getting over it. And no, I don't for a moment think that she would have. Never."

Lewis nodded. This was a good time to find out what, if anything, Erika knew or suspected. But before he could open his mouth he heard his BlackBerry ringing. Their lives were ruled by these bloody gadgets, he thought in exasperation. He mouthed an apology, turned away a little and flipped the thing open.

"Laura Hobson here. I'd like a word with you about the Alex Feld case."

"We'll be at the lab in twenty minutes."

"Well, actually, I'm standing outside the front door."

"I'll let her in," Erika said, without pretending not to have overheard.

As they all stood rather awkwardly in the doorway, the pathologist got straight to the point. "Things don't look too good, I'm afraid. No fingerprints on the knife; the killer must have worn gloves. Our only hope is to find some DNA on the cigarette packet. The lab boys are working on it – they'll contact you 'a', 's', as humanly 'p'."

Lewis nodded. Laura Hobson shifted from one foot to the other, then fished in her bag, extracted a small cactus plant and placed it on a little table on top of a jumble of papers and keys. "And I wanted to see how you were," she said, turning eyes filled with concern and warmth towards Erika.

Erika barely glanced at the plant. "Thank you, Laura," she whispered, her accent suddenly stronger. "I would like to be alone now, if possible."

Lewis and Hathaway followed Hobson out and watched her get into her car and drive away. They moved towards their car.

"Pub?" Hathaway asked.

"Station," Lewis replied firmly.

* * * * 

"The lab boys." Hathaway sounded despondent as he replaced the receiver. "There is some DNA on the cigarette packet, but it doesn't match the DNA of any known offender in any of the databases in this country." He drummed his long fingers on the table. Probably dying for a fag, Lewis thought unsympathetically, glaring at the unappealing icons on his BlackBerry.

"Which means that the murderer is someone without a record," continued Hathaway. "Or a foreigner. We need to delve deeper into everyone's connections." "Maybe start with Gita," Lewis mused. "Too young for Erika. A twenty-year gap, like."

Hathaway turned sharply towards him. "And that makes her a suspect?"

Lewis rolled his eyes. "No, but she may have been angry at having her mother figure taken away from her."

"Maybe what Gita wanted wasn't a mother figure, sir," Hathaway snapped, the last word an open challenge.

"Just hypothesising," said Lewis, attempting a placating tone.

"Well, try hypothesising something other than parents and children. Hypothesise Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Or Socrates and Plato. Whatever your inclination is." He glared at Lewis, his voice rising a little. "Hypothesise age difference being just one of the differences that make life interesting." He stopped abruptly and looked down, then away.

Lewis frowned at him. They had come across gay people a few times after the Zoe Kenneth case – he refused to dwell on those memories in the daytime, the images that haunted his sleep were scary enough – but Jim had been acting peculiar ever since this case started, and it was beginning to mess up the investigation. Not to mention the atmosphere between them. He put down the BlackBerry, maybe with a little more energy than necessary.

"What's got into you?"

"I don't know what you mean, sir."

Lewis started mentally counting to ten, and stopped at eight. "Look, Jim. I have a duty of care towards you, right? So if I see that you're all hot and bothered about something, it's my duty to find out what it is." Bloody hell. He had put it all wrong. It wasn't duty of care as a superior officer, it was personal concern – as a colleague, as a friend. As someone who occasionally was let into the fortress that was James Hathaway.

"Hot and bothered." That damned upper-class habit of quoting what you just said right back at you. "I am neither, sir. You really should get more sleep. If herbal tea won't do the job, may I recommend meditation?" Hathaway closed his eyes for a second, then re-opened them and stood up. "Sorry, sir. I'll go and stand over the lab people."

He moved towards the door. The phone on his desk rang before he could get there. He picked up the receiver, half impatiently and half resignedly. As soon as he heard who it was, he pressed the loudspeaker button. 

"I would like to make a suggestion," Erika Seidler said, slowly and precisely. "If you find any DNA on the Petra cigarette packet, you could contact the Austrian section of Europol and check it against that of a man who has an Austrian police record."

Lewis swallowed. "Who's this man?"

A pause. "Josef Passer. My ex-husband."

* * * * * 

The late afternoon light played along the slatted blinds of their office. Something pinged on Hathaway's computer, and he hastily put down the sandwich he had been eating.

"A perfect match."

Hathaway tapped the keyboard, and the entry from the Austrian Criminal Records Database appeared on the screen. The mug shot from his last arrest, six years earlier, showed a man in his forties, brown-haired and pockmarked, with blue eyes that stared belligerently at whoever might be looking at him.

" _Schwere Körperverletzung_ , that's grievous bodily harm, right?" Lewis leaned forward, pointing at the screen. Erika, sitting between him and Hathaway, nodded, quickly finished her sandwich, wiped her hands and started translating all the items, one after the other. 

"Born in Salzburg, 1961. Last known residence, Vienna. Previous convictions: arrested 1980 at an anti-nuclear demonstration." Lewis saw Hathaway's lips quirk, but their faces darkened as Erika continued to translate. "Arrested 1982, for damaging the Vienna synagogue during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Arrested 1988 as part of a group that attacked and injured Muslim migrants going to a mosque. Arrested 1992 for . . ." she paused for a moment, searching for the right word, "urinating on the EU flag and then burning it." Another brief pause. "I had left him by then."

"We need every bit of information on him, however unlikely some details may seem to you." Hathaway's voice was gentle but urgent. "Please, try to tell us anything you know."

"I met him when we were twenty, at the University of Vienna." She looked down at her hands. "We got married six months afterwards. We were both active in a lot of causes … pacifism, the environment, human rights. Josef was so intelligent, so passionate. So intense. But …" She twisted her hands, rubbing her thumbs together. "… But there was an edge to his intensity, something I found scary. Sometimes he drank. Sometimes he got into fights. And his political views . . ."

Lewis waited for a moment, then prompted her: ". . . changed."

She ran a hand through her hair. "He drifted away from human rights and the environment, and moved towards the Austrian Freedom Party …" She glanced questioningly towards Lewis and Hathaway and decided to explain briefly. "Anti-immigration, anti-Semitic, anti-EU, anti a lot of the things I still firmly believed in."

"So you left him," Hathaway said quietly.

"Yes." A long pause. "I had also realised that I could be attracted to women. Josef did not take this well. He called me a pervert, a _Mannweib_ , not a real woman. He drank, he … There was some violence." She pulled a water bottle out of her shoulder bag and drank deeply. "One day I packed two suitcases, took half of the joint bank account, and flew to London. I waited a year and served him with divorce papers."

"How did Mr Passer deal with the divorce?"

"For years he wrote me angry letters, but made no attempt to follow me. People told me that he had become a loner. Then after a while the letters stopped." 

"So why would he have come here, after all these years, and murdered Alex now, in cold blood?"

Erika rummaged in her shoulder bag again and pulled out a transparent plastic sleeve containing a small newspaper cutting. It was in German, with a tiny photograph of two smiling boys, one of them Alex. "The sports page of a Vienna paper, _Der Standard_. Last month." Lewis remembered the international school competition; his schoolboy German was enough for him to see that the interviewer – who seemed impressed with Alex – had also mentioned the name and surname of his Austrian mother. 

Hathaway stepped aside and tapped a series of numbers on his BlackBerry. "Good afternoon. Sergeant Hathaway, Oxfordshire Police. . . Yes, in connection with Alex Feld . . . Has anyone contacted your school in the past month asking about him? . . . Can you remember if this man had a foreign accent? . . . Many thanks."

Lewis and Erika looked at him in silence. "Yes," Hathaway summarised. "A man rang the school. He had an accent. The school didn't give him any information, though."

A pause. Lewis looked at Erika. "Why didn't you tell us sooner?"

"I did not want to believe it," she whispered. "For a few years we really loved each other. I just refused to believe that he could go this far."

Lewis nodded, realising that there was no point in pushing any further. Then he quickly glanced around and looked back at Erika. "Ms Seidler, your ex-husband is still on the loose. I don't think you'd be safe at home. Let us drive you to a hotel. Would you like a WPC . . . ?"

"No. Thank you. I'd like to go home," she said softly but firmly.

"I could drive Ms Seidler home and park myself in her living-room with a book." Hathaway looked encouragingly at Erika, who glanced from him to Lewis and then nodded slowly. Hathaway detached himself from the door and held it open for Erika.

"Keep in touch, and be careful" Lewis said to his sergeant's back. Hathaway turned with a little grin that was something between his usual wry smirk and a genuine smile, affectionate, heartwarming. Shaking his head and repeating to himself that his anxiety was merely duty-of-care concern for a younger colleague, Lewis turned back to Passer's record, staring at his face and trying to guess where he might be and what he might do next.

His speculations were abruptly interrupted five minutes later when PC Phan rushed in, barely pausing for a perfunctory knock on the door. Phan was very young, had arrived in Oxford from Glasgow the previous month, and had passed his Advanced and Defensive Driving Test the previous week.

"Amon'sattackedthreegayfolkwi'ahammer," he let out in one gasp. His native accent, usually kept under control – his new colleagues, even in 2008, were inclined to make fun of someone who had a Vietnamese surname, looked Asian and could be mistaken for Billy Connolly the moment he opened his mouth – was resurfacing under the stress.

"Where?" Lewis snapped, glad that comprehension was still possible. Tyneside wasn't too far from the Scottish border, after all.

"At a GLBT meeting in Jericho. One's dead, two are at the John Radcliffe. The bastard's escaped." 

"Are you actually _shouting_ , Constable?" Innocent had materialised on the threshold, Medusa glare firmly in place.

"Attack on a gay meeting, ma'am. Three victims, one dead." Phan had immediately stood to attention; the accent was less perceptible, but the hands at his sides were shaking.

"Get moving, then. Phan, go with Inspector Lewis."

"Crime scene or hospital?" Lewis rubbed his jaw. "We can't rule out a connection with the murder of the schoolboy."

Innocent thought for a minute. "You're right, we can't. I'll send someone else to the crime scene. _You_ find the other victims and their friends, get statements and a description. I'll organise a criss-cross search of the area, send a bulletin to motorists, deal with the media." She paused and spoke more softly. "Let's get him soon."

* * * *

Another hospital corridor, the same smells of disinfectant and of sickness, pain, death. And this was the same Emergency corridor where Lewis had sat for hours four years ago, his arms tight around his children, waiting to hear about Val. He shoved the memory as far back in his mind as he could and glanced at the door at the other end of the corridor, where half a dozen people who had been at the gay meeting were huddled, answering PC Phan's questions.

Lewis fished his BlackBerry out of his pocket and succeeded in speed-dialling the lab technicians. "Any news on the hammer?"

"No, sir. I mean yes, we've got news, but it's bad. Ordinary hardware store hammer, and not one fingerprint. He must've worn gloves."

"Thanks a lot," Lewis grumbled. He ended the call. Suddenly, he wanted to hear Hathaway's voice – wry, sane, familiar. The man had become the closest thing to family he had in Oxford. He frowned. Family? No point in trying to figure it out. What he knew for sure was that they needed each other. He'd known this for a while. What had old Mr Cooper said to him on his last day at the allotment? Something like _Some people remember they're needed somewhere else_. Yep.

The Blackberry felt warm and inviting in his hand. He speed-dialled Hathaway's number.

"Jim."

"Sir."

Was there a little smile in the greeting? Lewis repressed a little unwarranted smile of his own and gave his sergeant brief details about the attack. "No evidence yet. We're taking statements from the people who were at the meeting, especially the two injured ones."

"We?"

"PC Phan's here." Lewis visualised a raised eyebrow at the other end. "I may need a driver. How are things over there?" 

"Erika is tense, but she's bearing up. I'm going to spend the night on her sofa. She offered me schnapps, which I have virtuously refused."

"You should virtuously abstain from smoking as well. Instead of waffling on about my sleep debt. Think about pots and kettles. And think about emphysema and lung cancer occasionally."

He had expected a retort along the lines of "Yes, Dad", but the silence at the other end was companionable, without irony. "You look after yourself too. Get some rest when you can."

"Right. And Jim, try to keep Erika away from the radio and the TV. Her ex-girlfriend was one of the people hurt." Lewis ended the call, looked toward the end of the corridor, stretched, got up and approached the small group by the door. Phan was awkwardly patting the arm of a man in his thirties, who was quietly crying.

Lewis quickly introduced himself. "As Constable Phan will have explained, we need informal statements from all of you about what happened at the end of your meeting. Just what you remember, who this fellow was, what he looked like, if he said anything before going berserk, things like that." He glanced at a conservative-looking youngish man in a suit, waistcoat and tie. "All right, sir?" He looked more closely and felt two spots of heat rise in his cheeks. "Beg your pardon. Ma'am."

She gave him a cold level look. "He had receding brown hair," she said, terse and precise. "A pitted face. Not very tall, maybe five foot eight or nine."

"He must have been lurking outside, near the door of the hall," an assertive male voice interrupted. Lewis recognised Conan Jones, the leader of the Save Our Screaming Spires group, who had been a friend of the late Will McEwan. "When the meeting broke up he just rushed towards us and started shouting in German and hitting out."

 _Why am I not surprised_ , Lewis thought wryly. Then his heart missed a beat. _Where did he head next?_ He motioned to Conan to wait and speed-dialled Hathaway again.

"Jim. Yeah, me again. Anything suspicious?"

"Not since we last spoke two minutes ago." Lewis snorted loudly at this. "But sir, Erika switched on the TV in her bedroom. I couldn't stop her. She's seen the news, she's badly shaken. Dr Hobson tried to comfort her . . ."

"Dr Hobson?"

"Yes, she dropped in on her way back from the crime scene, stayed a while, and has just left. Sir, do you think I . . ."

"Just be careful, man. It's the same fellow, I'm sure. And stay in touch." He ended the call and turned back to Conan. "Go ahead." 

Conan nodded. "At first I thought it was some sort of joke, but then I heard screams, and then Jeremy was lying on the ground." He paused, his voice breaking. "His head . . ."

"Can anyone remember anything else?"

The man next to Phan raised his head. "A couple of us tried to stop him. He attacked one of our new members, the Norwegian girl. And Gita grabbed him by his other arm . . ."

"Gita? Narayan?"

"Yes, she's our treasurer. And I tried to hold him from behind, but he raised the hammer and brought it down on Gita's arm, and she screamed, and I . . . "He ran a hand through his hair. " . . . I let go. And he dropped the hammer and ran. We chased him, but he was too fast."

"Inspector." A nurse was beckoning to Lewis. After telling Phan to keep taking statements, Lewis followed her to an open cubicle where a doctor was securing a sling around Gita's neck and right shoulder. A plaster cast extended from her hand to above her elbow. A blonde girl was standing, very still and watchful, just outside the cubicle. 

"What happened, Ms Narayan?"

"I won't be playing hockey for a few weeks," Gita said, with an attempt at a shrug immediately followed by a grimace of pain.

"She saved my life," the blonde girl said carefully, a slight Scandinavian lilt to her voice. "That madman was calling us _Schwuchtel_ and _Mannweiber_ and he was hitting us, and I could not believe this was happening, and I just froze where I stood. He turned towards me. And Gita grabbed his arm, and he broke hers. Twice." She looked at Gita, her blue eyes big, filled with warmth. 

"My hero," Gita mocked gently.

"Yes," the girl stated firmly. The two of them went to give their statements to Phan, walking close together. Lewis's BlackBerry rang.

"Sir." Short, tense. "Movement in the garden. Better send backup. I'm . . ."

Glass breaking, then a shattering noise and a woman's terrified scream, Hathaway's voice, some unintelligible shouting and a thump, and then nothing.

Lewis shuddered. No. Not again. _Not again, please,_ he found himself silently begging he did not know whom or what. He raced towards the door, shouting Phan's name at the top of his voice, oblivious of where he was.

"Sir." Phan was beside him as they ran out of the hospital, towards their car. Lewis shouted out Erika's address as Phan slid into the driver's seat, then dialled the station and shouted for "backup, _now_ ". 

"How do we get there from here?" Phan asked calmly, switching on the headlights and the siren before speeding out of the hospital car park.

"Oh God. The Woodstock Road, somewhere off it. Go, man. Hurry, they're in danger."

"Right." Phan approached some traffic lights which were turning from amber to red, floored the accelerator and flowed smoothly through the intersection and towards a roundabout. The High Street was almost empty, the streetlights were pale and cold in the damp night. 

"There's a shortcut somewhere, but it's too damn dark to see," Lewis muttered, forcing himself to breathe slowly. He swallowed hard, fished the BlackBerry out of his pocket, determinedly switched on the GPS function and logged in. "Please," he whispered to nobody in particular as he tapped in their location – they'd just passed Magdalen College – and Erika's address. His eyes went wide as the map appeared on the little screen, a red line indicating their route and an arrow pointing north.

"Faster," he ordered Phan, attempting to zoom the map in and failing. "The next right, I think, and _watch it_ , man."

"Nae need to shout, sir," Phan said, snaking between a slow-moving lorry and an oncoming motorbike.

"All right. Sorry. I'll tell you where to turn next." _If that bastard hurts Jim, I'll leave the force, then I'll find him and kill him with my bare hands_.

"Nae problem at aa, sir." Knuckles white on the wheel, but in perfect control, Phan glided between two rows of parked cars, swerving very close to a Volvo whose elderly driver shook her fist at him.

The red line was still on the screen, encouragingly showing them the way past the Randolph. _Turn left into Pusey Street_ , it advised. "Left at the Lamb and Flag," Lewis ordered. Phan decelerated a fraction and turned sharply into Pusey Street. 

Lewis focused on trying to remember what Hathaway had done when he wanted to zoom something in. He had kind of moved his fingers apart, like this …? No, like _this_. The labyrinth-like network of small streets around Pusey Street sprang into view, the red line bold and reassuring. "Second left, then first right. And there's a message from the backup car, they'll be there shortly." He slipped the Blackberry into his inside pocket, and it felt right, a useful tool of the trade.

Phan braked to a screeching halt in front of the main door. The French window to the right was smashed, the curtains violently torn aside. They ran inside, stepping on innumerable shards of glass which covered the living-room carpet. In the chilling silence that surrounded them like the cold, damp air drifting in from outside, Lewis moved towards the kitchen as fast as his shaking legs would take him. The professionally-tuned part of his brain noted that the tennis things were still piled up in one corner and the cricket things lay messily around the doorway.

In the kitchen, Erika was sitting on a chair, shaking silently, an untouched drink on the table next to her. Hathaway was squatting next to Passer who was lying unconscious on his back with a deep red bruise in the centre of his forehead. He turned around and smiled, a small, unguarded smile.

"He's alive, sir. It's all right, I called for an ambulance, they should be here soon."

"What'd you do to him?" Lewis demanded, trying to ignore the rush of joyful relief that was melting his guts and turning his legs to jelly.

"Cricket ball, sir." Hathaway nodded towards one on the floor next to the man. "I took it," a quick explanatory movement of his chin towards the doorway, "and put it in my pocket, just in case." He paused for a moment, and Lewis could sense his attempt to control his voice. "I took a bat too, just in case, but I couldn't use it. He burst in and grabbed Erika, holding her from behind, an arm around her neck. He had a knife." A pause, a deep breath. "I tried to talk to him, and he just shouted back in German. So I did what I could. I used to play cricket a bit. Fast bowler." A small, self-deprecating shrug. "But I didn't throw _too_ hard." 

Behind him, Lewis heard an awed Glaswegian whisper, "Fuckin magic." As he turned and gave Phan a warning look, another upper-class understatement flashed through his mind, _I used to row a bit_ – his and Hathaway's first case together, two years ago, when everything started. He rolled his eyes at the soppy thought, then went to put a firm hand on Erika's shoulder.

"You're all right, love. He won't touch you again. Or anyone else. For a long time. Maybe ever."

* * * * 

The Classical channel on the car radio was playing something complicated and anguished. Lewis pushed the "off" button. He was almost home. Phan had driven him back to the station, Hathaway had gone off in his own car, and he was alone, tired to the bone, heading towards another night of rubbish on the television and hours spent trying to sleep and fighting thoughts that were better not delved into.

Half an hour later, in a battered blue tracksuit, he was half-heartedly tidying up the living-room while waiting for the pan of water to boil. He was also trying, unsuccessfully, to prevent his drifting thoughts from focusing on morbid stuff. Such as the fact that death can come when you least expect it, when you're waiting for your mother to collect you, when you're going home from a meeting, or when you're crossing the road to post a parcel. Or the fact that he was pushing fifty-six, his hairline and his stores of energy were receding at the same fast pace, and if he had any sense left he'd accept that nobody in their right mind would ever again look at him with _that_ kind of interest. For a moment he heard Morse's voice, weary and ironic, saying _Memento mori_ , and he grimaced at himself.

The doorbell rang just as he was about to tip spaghetti into the boiling water. Typical, he told himself as he resignedly went to open the door.

Hathaway pushed himself off the doorframe and silently extended a bottle of white wine.

"Jim."

"Sir."

"Thought you were picking me up first thing tomorrow, to question Passer in hospital," grumbled Lewis, following Jim into the living room and trying not to focus on the fact that all thoughts of mortality had flown god knew where.

"Yes." Jim had found the corkscrew and two glasses, and was pouring. "But I thought we both needed some debriefing. It's been a rough two days."

Lewis nodded and put a double quantity of pasta into the pan. "It's only pesto out of a jar and parmesan cheese," he muttered apologetically.

"Goes well with Chardonnay." Jim handed over a full glass. "Good of Dr Hobson to volunteer to stay with Erika tonight. I would've offered, but after all that Erika's been through, a woman friend's much better than a policeman."

Lewis stirred the pasta, trying to put an awkward thought into neutral words. "Laura said she and Erika had 'mutual friends' and then sort of clammed up. You don't think these mutual friends could be . . .?" 

"What if they are?" Jim's tone was light, casual, unconfrontational. Yet the conversation was turning into a minefield. Lewis mentally kicked himself and tried to backpedal.

"Doesn't worry me. You know that. Live and let live, etcetera."

Jim morphed into Sgt. Hathaway before Lewis's eyes. He put his glass down, straightened his shoulders and smiled quickly, professionally. "Of course, sir. Live and let live, _et cetera_. I need a cigarette." By the time Lewis found his voice, Jim was nearly at the door.

"Wait." Lewis marched to the gas ring, switched it off decisively and followed him down the hallway. "What're you on about?"

Jim hesitated, his back still to Lewis. Then he blew out a short breath, turned around and, face deadpan, addressed a corner of the ceiling.

"I want to keep working with you. Anything else is my problem and I'll deal with it." 

"Anything else? Don't talk in riddles, man." Lewis took a deep breath. "Trust me, Jim."

"You know what I mean. Stop pretending to yourself." Jim spoke fast, still staring at the ceiling. A moment's wait for a reply, then a stream of words, progressively louder. "You know the way I feel about you. You've known for a while. But after you saved me from the fire, we just let it drop. Don't ask, don't tell. And I thought all right, I can manage this, I can play along." He hit the table with the flat of his hand. "But ever since this case started, you've been going on about parents and children, the implication being that this is what you and I are, this is what we feel, let's not get complicated like Erika, see what her complications brought her. Just live and let live." He looked straight at Lewis, eyes flashing. "You may, indeed you must, order me around. You may, and probably must, tell me to shut up and piss off. But you may not speak for me." He fished in his pockets, took out cigarettes and lighter, and stuck a cigarette in his mouth.

"Stop it." Lewis glared at him, stepped closer and pulled away the cigarette. His fingers brushed Jim's lips, and his cheeks flushed as shivers ran up his legs. He stepped back, felt himself spring up like a youngster, and was grateful he was wearing big, floppy tracksuit pants. He opened his mouth to snap at Jim, but other words came out instead, plain words which had been lurking at the back of his mind, waiting for the right moment, ever since that mad dash to Erika's house. "I never spoke for you. Spoke to myself, mostly. To convince myself, maybe. That I didn't feel what I did feel." 

Jim just looked at him, and Lewis held his breath while his job and his children and Val and Innocent and Erika swirled around him like a whirlpool. And in the centre of the whirlpool were Will McEwan, saying _Love is never wrong_ , and Morse, saying _Carpe diem_. "Now then. Carpe diem," he muttered.

"What?" Jim said, startled.

"Seize the day."

"Yes," Jim said, laughter bubbling in his voice. "Horace, Odes, Book one, Ode eleven. And would you . . ."

"Oh, ne'er mind." Lewis reached for the back of Jim's neck, drew him in and brushed his lips against his. A moment of sucking in Jim's breath and tasting smoke and wine, a shudder at the first touch of Jim's tongue, and then he drew back, to give Jim time to say _No, thanks_ , accept his apologies and leave.

Jim was looking at him, face deadpan, eyes lit up and dancing. "I didn't get that, sir. Could you repeat?"

This time, Lewis's kiss was harder, more demanding, wiping out any attempts at lightness, any lingering doubts about fathers and sons, any feelings of impropriety, any fears of disloyalty to the dead, anything but need and joy and wrenchingly urgent desire. They broke apart for a moment and his face was seized in both of Jim's hands, the furrows on his forehead and cheeks explored and stroked by sensitive fingertips, his lips traced and caressed, and Jim was smiling, no, grinning like he'd gone daft, like he'd won some lottery. Lewis couldn't speak, his heart was thumping – was he getting a heart attack? No. That was probably going to come later.

"Your bedroom's this way, right?" Being led by the hand, ludicrous at his age, but he wasn't complaining. A casual glance back at the kitchen, at the pan full of soggy mess that had been spaghetti. A brief sigh of relief on entering the bedroom, yes, he had found the time to make the bed that morning. He sat down on the edge, a captive audience to the amazing spectacle of James Hathaway shedding his jacket, loosening his tie and and whipping it off, unbuttoning his shirt with fingers that didn't falter and smiling eyes that never left Lewis's. And suddenly, blast him, stopping.

"I'm not doing this on my own. I want to watch you." And then more determinedly, at Lewis's grimace, "I want to watch you undress for me."

"Right." Lewis took a deep breath, stood up, pulled the tracksuit top over his head, pulled off the trousers, made short work of t-shirt and boxer shorts. There he was, bulges and flab, grey hair and obvious arousal. Take it or leave it.

The sight didn't make Jim grab his clothes and flee. Quite the opposite, Lewis noticed with raised eyebrows when he glanced down at him. 

"Right," repeated Jim. He gently pushed Lewis backwards and lay on top of him, caressing him almost at random, a shoulder, a forearm, a quick lick on a nipple that made Lewis buck and fear that things would be over all too soon, a kiss on the inner side of a wrist that made Lewis's insides melt into a puddle. And in between all this he was making other quick, unobtrusive movements, until belt and trousers and, amazingly, socks were discarded and lying in a pile at the foot of the bed.

Lewis repressed the urge to ask totally inappropriate questions about strippers and seminaries. He just let his hands wander all over Jim, over his bristly, luminous hair, over the small scar on his chin (ask him later), over his muscular shoulders and biceps (so fit, and such smooth skin), over his slim waist and down the small, round, firm backside. With a small private smile he closed his eyes, went through the move in his mind – the only one in judo class he'd actually mastered – and neatly flipped Jim over.

A moment later, his triumphant smile turned into a rueful grimace. "Shit."

Jim made a gentle interrogative noise.

"I'm not . . . prepared. Are you?"

"Hoping and planning don't necessarily go together." A little smirk. "I'm not _prepared_ either."

"Well, then." He didn't need to ask, Lewis thought happily – he could just take charge. He liked taking charge. He firmly placed himself in Jim's hands and took hold of Jim – the amazing newness of him, so different and yet so alike, so warm against his hands, so . . . He gasped, laughing, as he felt himself being stroked and pulled and tickled in unexpected, sensitive spots. Jim half-smiled back, closing his eyes and whispering something under his breath.

"What's that?"

More strokes and caresses, accompanied by the soft, rhythmic whisper.

"Praying, are you?"

A little lopsided smile. "Saying my seven times table."

"Your . . .?? Oh. Or else you'd . . ." A brief snort of laughter. "I'll give you the times tables," and Lewis captured Jim's lips in a hard kiss, at the same time giving him short, urgent jerks.

"Robbie, don't," Jim gasped against his lips, and it was the name that did it for them both. They tensed, arched and messily spurted all over their fingers and each other, and collapsed side by side, laughing.

"Bloody teenagers, both of us," Lewis said. He looked at Jim, unselfconsciously spread-eagled over two-thirds of the bed. "You staying?"

"Oh yes. But I'll have to go home early in the morning. Shave, change and meet you at the hospital. Next time . . ." A brief pause, a sideways look. Lewis nodded silently. ". . . I might bring a change of clothes and a disposable razor." Jim smiled at Lewis, then his eyes strayed longingly in the direction of his jacket. Lewis noticed, considered a moment, then nudged him. "Go on, then. But open the window and blow the poison out."

Jim gave him an angelic smile. "Want me to get dressed first?"

"Not necessarily," Lewis said with a leer.

* * * *  
 **Friday 24 October**

 

A shrill repeated tone shattered Lewis's sleep – the soundest he'd slept in years. He sat up, shaking his head to clear it, switched the bedside light on and glanced at his wristwatch. 6 a.m. – he'd slept for nearly six hours. Silenced BlackBerry in hand, Jim was smiling at him. 

"As you no doubt know, _sir_ , BlackBerries have an alarm function."

Lewis gave him a shove. "You don't say. My little mobile has an alarm and all."

Jim got out of bed and swiftly pulled his clothes on. "See you at the hospital." He leaned down to give him a long kiss. Lewis had never thought he could enjoy a smoker's morning breath. 

"See you here tonight, as well. We can finish off the Chardonnay. And I'll make more spaghetti."

* * * *

Another hospital room, this one with a police officer (young, female, a little tense with her responsibility) sitting in front of the door.

The doctor on duty was elderly and tired. "He's been X-rayed. Mild concussion. You can take him away tomorrow." A brief sigh. "You may question him now. His English's good, you won't need an interpreter."

Passer, his head bandaged, did not stir when they stepped into the room. Only his pale-blue eyes, under thick sandy eyebrows, moved as he raised them towards Lewis's, unblinking.

"Why the boy?" Lewis asked quietly. "And why two days ago?"

No attempt at denial. Just contempt in his soft, accented voice as the brief matter-of-fact sentences came out. "Two weeks ago I found out from a newspaper that the boy existed. My wife had always refused me children. I thought this was because she was a lesbian." His lips twisted at the last word. "I could forgive her for being a lesbian. And for leaving me. But she betrayed me. She had a son with a _Stinkjude_."

A Nazi hate word. Lewis shuddered and felt Hathaway stiffen beside him. "So you wanted to hurt her. And the boy's father."

A minute lowering of eyelids. "Of course."

Hathaway looked straight at him. "What about the gay meeting? What did you have against _them_? Was that also because of your ex-wife?"

A tensing of the jaw, a slight raising of the voice. "No. In the evening I watched the news. And I found out about Haider."

"You found out about your late leader being outed," Hathaway taunted.

Patches of red appeared on the man's pale, pitted cheeks. "Asylum seekers, Muslim terrorists, immigrants. Useless unemployed people. We could have done great things about them. Haider denounced all of them. He proposed laws against them." His eyes widened a little. "But he and his _Arschficker_ deputy never said a word against homosexuals. Not even when they left the Freedom Party to found a more radical party. Of course they never said they _approved_ of perverts. But they never expressed disapproval either." A pause, a short burst of sarcastic laughter. "I tried to bring the matter up at a conference of the new party. Haider himself said that the real battles were about ethnicity, not ethics. And all the time he . . ." Passer tried to spit, but his mouth was dry and he had to content himself with a grimace. He turned his eyes away from the two detectives and stared at the blank wall in front of him.

He'd started out as a science student supporting human rights. And then he had found blind faith and the unquestioning belief in the elimination of anyone who was different. Lewis was glad that he himself had very few beliefs left. He stepped determinedly into Passer's field of vision. "Answer the sergeant's question. Why the gay meeting?" 

Passer's eyes were blank. "All perverts are traitors. So I decided to punish as many of them as I could. The meeting was easy to find." His words lingered, cold and implacable, in the air between them. Lewis glanced at Hathaway's set jaw. 

"A hammer," Hathaway spat. 

The ice-blue eyes did not flicker. "I bought it and the other knife at a hardware shop just outside Oxford Station," Josef Passer said, still calm and precise. "My wife was part of their filthy group. I saw what was on her car. So I decided to deal with her next." He looked from Lewis to Hathaway, closed his eyes and turned towards the wall.

As they left, Lewis walked ahead wordlessly, eyes down, ashamed of being human and afraid to see his own reflection in another human being's eyes.

Hathaway caught up with him and walked in step with him, hands deep in his pockets.

"Pub?" he asked, looking straight ahead. Hathaway, who had beliefs but was constantly questioning them, who used his rational mind to rescue others, not to destroy them.

"Pub," Lewis said grimly.

 

**Wednesday 29 October**

 

It was cloudy, but some late afternoon sun was shining through the tree branches as they all filed out of the Iffley Road indoor sports hall, singly or in small groups, some sombre, some smiling in fond remembrance, others wiping their eyes and blowing their noses. The Sports Complex had offered its largest room for the memorial service for Alex Feld, and it had been packed with athletes, sixth-formers, teachers, friends of both his parents, and people who had been reading the papers in the past week.

Lewis moved towards Neil Thomson, who was walking alone, slightly ahead of a group of other youngsters.

"You'll stay in the running team?" he asked bluntly. _For Alex as well as for yourself_ , he wanted to add, but it sounded mushy as well as obvious.

Neil nodded silently, swallowing. "I'll do my best," he muttered, an answer also to what Lewis hadn't said.

Walking on, Lewis saw Gita, head bowed, going towards a small car where the Norwegian girl was waiting, and was glad that she had made her peace with Alex. He glanced back towards the door of the building, where Erika was standing with Philip Feld, his dark-haired wife and their sobbing daughters. Laura Hobson was at the edge of the small group, outside it but close to it, and Erika seemed to be aware of her.

A loyal friend, Laura. How many of these things had she come to? She'd been at Val's funeral, efficiently keeping people away from his raging grief. And she'd been at Morse's, weeping for her own grief and for Lewis's. She deserved someone who loved her, someone with whom she could laugh as well as face death. Some day.

"A good celebration." Jim was beside him, tall and serious, warmth radiating from him. "Alex has left many good memories. He'll live on in a lot of people."

Almost what a priest would say to a parishioner. Old resentment flared in Lewis's guts. "Did you notice God was not mentioned today?"

"A good celebration," Jim repeated, placidly refusing to rise to the bait. "And there's no evidence God wasn't there."

Lewis looked away, regret for his outburst warring with his hostility to religion. A muted ring tone startled him out of his confusion.

"Even here . . .?!"

Jim's eyes narrowed in a brief smile. "It's yours, I think."

With a shrug, Lewis thumbed his BlackBerry open. "Innocent," he mouthed. "Yes, ma'am. Good idea. Of course I'll endorse it. He's around here somewhere, I'll let him know. We'll be in later." He slid the BlackBerry back into his jacket pocket and slowly looked Jim up and down. "You're being put forward for a commendation. Apprehending an armed criminal single-handedly, saving a woman's life, and so on."

Jim silently raised an eyebrow, but pleasure was shining through his eyes. 

"Bound to loook good on your C.V.," Lewis said proudly. "For when you apply for promotion."

"You may be in a hurry to get rid of me, sir, but I'm in no hurry to make any further changes to my present circumstances."

Lewis shook his head at him. "See you at the coalface." Their shoulders touched briefly before they moved away towards their separate cars.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. In October 2009 an Austrian court ruled that it was illegal (and punishable with fines) to call Joerg Haider a homosexual. This story, however, was written (and is set) before the ruling.
> 
> 2\. This takes place after the end of Season 2 and makes no references to events happening in the subsequent seasons.
> 
> 3\. All my thanks to Darcyone and Miriam for their shared love of "Lewis" and their patient beta.


End file.
